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“So this is what you have to go through,” Frank said as he watched Professor Dawson and me at work. Frank was dressed only in a pair of tighty-whities, and he was wearing his glasses, ’cause we’d just gotten done making love less than an hour before. Watching Frank lounging around in next to nothing was arousing me all over again. He was every bit as sexy in glasses as he was wearing contacts.
Noticing the obvious tent in my briefs, he walked up to me and gave it a gentle squeeze and said, “We’ll deal with this thing later.”
“Later, I’ll be too doped up from the Valium,” I lamented.
“At least it’s not like we didn’t already have our fun, hon,” he replied.
I couldn’t help but smile at the memory of our evening together. We’d told both sets of parents we were going camping and hiking for the weekend. That way they couldn’t check up on us, since there was no way to reach us by phone, and since we were supposedly in a public place, Frank’s parents didn’t need to worry about a sexual aspect to our time together. This was the fifth weekend in a row we’d done this, and we hoped to continue using camping as an excuse to get together on the weekends over the entire summer, up until our families took their summer vacations in late August. We’d even gone out and bought a season pass for admission to all the Missouri state parks to make it look legitimate.
The reality was that we were spending our weekends at Professor Dawson’s house. That gave us plenty of time for a little fun in the sack, and we were able to work on OTT and to contact Chris-13, as we were gonna do tonight. It was also an opportunity for Frank to catch up on his studies with Dawson, since he’d fallen way behind after his parents pulled him from the program.
After enjoying dinner with some of Dawson’s other students who roomed there, many of whom, it turned out, were gay, he and I had retreated to the spare bedroom for a little recreational time before getting down to the business of OTT. We’d started out undressing each other and then sucking each other off, and had progressed to the most incredible sex of my life. We’d tossed a coin to see who would give and who would receive, and I’d won — I was on the bottom.
Frank had been incredibly patient in the way he opened me up. I really appreciated that. It wasn’t like there were any manuals we could read on gay sex or anything, and we were both inexperienced in the matter. Still, Frank had taken his time massaging my pucker with the Vaseline, and then slowly inserting one, then two and finally three fingers. Sure, there’d been a little pain when he’d first entered me, but then what little pain there was had been replaced by incredible pleasure. I’d never felt anything like it.
This was the first time we’d gone this far. Tonight we had become as one. We’d been as intimate as two guys could be — we’d made love, and we were in love.
“I’m just about ready here,” the professor called out. “The tubes are fully warmed up and functioning perfectly, and the emitter-detector is on-line. Everything’s functioning perfectly.”
“Then let’s do it,” I said.
Earlier models of the apparatus had relied on sophisticated computers and lengthy computer programs to synchronize brainwaves between the past and current brains, but our apparatus worked entirely using analog signals and vacuum tubes, making it suitable for use decades into the past, if necessary. A single emitter/detector was deflected into all areas of the brain by using a ‘mirror ball’, which actually consisted of a spinning cylinder in which were mounted a series of precisely placed particle deflectors.
Coming up behind me, Frank put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a gentle squeeze as Professor Dawson stuck a needle into my arm, withdrew the plunger to verify that he was in the vein, and then pushed the plunger down, sending five milligrams of Valium into my bloodstream. I immediately began to feel the effects as my hold on the world around me started to slip away.
I barely sensed that the mirror ball had started spinning. Making use of the feedback tone coming from the equipment, which was tracking my brainwave patterns, I cleared my mind completely of my thoughts and allowed myself to slip into an alpha rhythm. Although it had been a month since our last contact with Chris-13, we were targeting a time only two weeks after our last contact with him. It would be the middle of the week in his time period, so we expected him to be alone and in his own bed.
The reason for contacting him tonight was to verify that he’d made contact with Professor Dawson in his time period and that everything was proceeding on-schedule. Unbeknownst to the professor, I was also going to verify that nothing strange was going on that might indicate that he’d been compromised.
It took about ten minutes for me to fully relax and slip into a pattern on a par with REM sleep. Gradually I felt my thoughts becoming one with the boy who’d been me four years before. Focusing my thoughts, I concentrated on appearing as myself in front of my thirteen-year-old counterpart. Slowly, his image came into focus in my mind as well.
As was usual, his facial features were in exquisite detail, whereas the rest of him faded into the fog. The one thing I could tell was that he was completely naked, as was I. It was always this way. Our body image was always devoid of clothing in our sleep.
No sooner had we greeted each other than a third person began to materialize in our dream state. I gasped when I realized that it was a thirteen-year-old version of Frank. For me, it was a feeling of déjà vu.
“Whoa! This is sooo far out, man,” young Frank said as he came into focus. “So this is what it’s like when you communicate with each other.”
“What are you doing here, Frank?” I asked.
“What do you mean, ‘What am I doing here?’ I’m right next to my boyfriend in bed. I didn’t realize I could ‘crash your party’, so to speak,” he added, “but this is really, really cool.”
“Your counterpart in my time period can do the same thing,” I commented. “It seems to be a unique ability you have.”
“So we’re still together in four years?” young Frank asked.
“Actually, we didn’t know each other before. You and I became boyfriends for the first time a few months ago,” I related. “By getting me involved with Dawson a couple years earlier than before, I guess it speeded things up by several years.”
“So we are gay!” Chris-13 exclaimed.
“Yes, we are very definitely gay,” I replied.
“You needed to ask?” Frank said with a smirk on his face. “After the way we went at it tonight, did you have any doubts? No straight boy would beg for it up the ass the way you did!”
“Whoa,” I said, “that’s more than I wanted to know!”
Just as I was about to say something more, a fourth figure started to coalesce in front of us. It was the Frank of my time period.
“Well, you kept calling out my name, and I wanted to see what was going on and make sure everything was all right.”
“But you’re awake,” I said.
“Not anymore,” he answered. “I injected myself with five of Valium, so I could join in.”
“Dawson let you do that?” I asked incredulously.
“I did it when he wasn’t looking, and before he could stop me,” the older Frank explained.
“I wouldn’t have been willing to bet it would work,” I added.
“Obviously it did,” he giggled. God, I loved his giggle.
“Frank,” Chris-13 said to the younger Frank, “you are going to be such a stud.”
“I’m already a stud,” the younger Frank challenged Chris-13 in the sultriest voice a thirteen-year-old could muster.
“Of course you are,” Chris-13 said, back pedaling a bit. “I love you the way you are now, but you’re gonna be phenomenally hot as a seventeen-year-old. I am sooo lookin’ forward to the next four years together.”
“Me too, babe,” the younger Frank said, and then the two younger images kissed, right in front of me. This was all new and uncharted territory in TTT-land.
“If I could interrupt your making out for a bit,” I interjected, “What are you two even doing in bed together? It’s not even been two weeks since you met. I can’t picture my parents letting a friend say over until they got to know him better, much less on a weeknight.”
“We’re not living with our parents right now,” Chris-13 answered. “Professor Dawson needed more of our time than we could give him living at home, so we’re living with him during the week, and just spending the weekends with the old folks. We’re gonna keep doin’ it when school starts back up in the fall, too.”
“But what about school?” I asked.
“Professor Dawson worked out a deal with our schools,” the younger Frank explained. “We’re gonna test out of the whole Math and Science curriculum, all the way through high school, and he’s hired a tutor to teach us everything else, so we won’t fall behind.”
“He said that if we wanted to, we might even be able to become real college students at the University by the time we’re fourteen,” Chris-13 added.
“That would be groovy as hell,” I exclaimed, “but it would really fuck up the timeline,” I pointed out. “We’re gonna need the contacts we make at Stanford, particularly in Graduate School, if we’re gonna be in the right place at the right time for OTT. If we finish college four years early — or rather three years earlier than we actually did the first time around, we might not be in the right place and time when the job becomes available at Lawrence Livermore, which is where we’re gonna develop TTT. It could be a fuckin’ disaster.”
“But stopping the Russians is probly even more important than the keepin’ the timeline consistent,” the Frank of my time period pointed out. “If they manage to stop our development of TTT, there’d be no way to stop the ultimate destruction of Earth. We’re in a race with them, man. At the very least, the Russians would end up winning the Cold War — or worse.”
“Fuck, you’re right,” I admitted.
“When did we get such a fuckin’ trash mouth?” Chris-13 asked with a giggle.
“I don’t usually talk this way,” I explained, “but this is one really fucked-up mess.”
“And we really know how to fuck,” Chris-13 giggled.
“Actually, in my timeline, tonight was Frank’s and my first time,” I corrected them.
“No shit?” the younger Frank asked.
“No shit!” the older Frank answered, “but it was the best experience of my life.”
“One thing I bet that hasn’t changed,” said the younger Frank, “is that Chris is a fantastic lover.”
“The best,” said the older Frank.
“Please, guys, could we stick to the subject?” I asked.
“I thought fucking is the subject,” Chris-13 interjected, and then he added, “but seriously, if Frank and I became boyfriends four years earlier than before, how come you don’t remember it? You should have memory after memory of us fucking like jackrabbits. Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, Fuck, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! You should remember that!”
“You sure seem to like saying ‘fuck’,” I noted.
“That’s ’cause I can get away with it here,” he explained, “but seriously, why don’t you remember?”
Before I could even ponder how I was gonna answer that one, young Frank explained, “It’s probly ’cause there’s still a lot of uncertainty in the timeline. A lot could happen in the next four years. Nothing’s written in stone. Much as I don’t want to think of it, we might not even be together in four years. With so much uncertainty in the timeline, you can’t remember what’s happened ’cause in a sense, it still hasn’t happened yet.”
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” I said as I smiled at young Frank.
“There’s a lesson in this,” the older Frank chimed in, speaking to our younger counterparts. “You two need to be extremely careful. You mustn’t be found out. No one else can know that you’re workin’ on TTT, and absolutely no one besides Dawson must ever find out that you’re boyfriends.
“I know you’d probly like to shout your love for each other from the mountaintops. I know. I feel the same way, but you can’t. If any of our parents found out, they could keep us apart ’til we turn eighteen. Now that I’ve found my Chris,” he said as he wrapped an arm around me, “I don’t ever want to be apart from him again. Please, PLEASE don’t do anything to jeopardize that, even if you have to cool things off for the next four or five years. Keep your relationship under wraps!”
Watching my boyfriend plead with them certainly seemed to be a real downer for the younger guys, but as sobering as the implications were, they really needed to hear it.
<<<<<<<<·>>>>>>>>
I opened my eyes to see that Frank had awakened as well. He had a different look on his face — if I had to describe it, I’d say he was subdued. Unless the experience I’d just had had been nothing more than a dream, we had just shared an experience that was both awe-inspiring, and frightening. We’d literally had a conversation with ourselves nearly four years into the future. That we were still together in four years was encouraging, but our future selves hadn’t even met until a few months before. In other words, Frank’s and my relationship was not yet written in stone, and the future was thus very uncertain. One little mistake and we could ruin any possibility of being together, perhaps even for the rest of our lives.
Getting a smile on his face, Frank said, “Chris, our counterparts from the future were right — we have to be careful, but that doesn’t mean we can’t be ourselves in the here and now. If we’re discovered, it would be a disaster, but if we stop being who we are out of fear of what might happen, we might as well split up right now. What’s the point of being boyfriends if we’re gonna let our fear keep us apart, even now.
“Yes, we’ll be careful, but we’re not gonna stop living, just ’cause of what might happen.”
My boyfriend was wise indeed. No we wouldn’t do anything that might risk our exposure, and to our friends and families, for all appearances, we’d be nothing more than the best of friends. When we were alone in Professor Dawson’s house, however, we would love each other, and make love to each other. I had no doubt that our love was meant to be.
As I was thinking these thoughts, Frank leaned forward and pressed his lips to mine. We already had our arms around each other, and we were soon both very hard. Our kisses and caresses and nips and licks soon progressed to fondling, and sucking, and before long I found myself buried in Frank this time. Yes, we would cherish our love.
<<<<<<<<·>>>>>>>>
“And in summary,” I stated to the audience, “temporal quantum variations cannot be explained solely based on variations in the Earth’s magnetic flux.”
Remarkably it had only taken me three months, but I’d finally provided the evidence I needed to complete my dissertation — my second attempt at defending my thesis. Actually, it wasn’t just me. It had taken the help of my counterparts from the future to come up with a viable set of experiments that would prove my case. All three of my future counterparts had gotten involved — Chris 31, Chris-38 and Chris-45.
Although we didn’t need to make use of TTT directly to prove the case, we came pretty damn close, and there was a lot more theory from our future work in OTT than any of us would have liked. This left us a lot more vulnerable to being discovered than had originally been the case, but if we hadn’t made use of the OTT theoretical framework, there might never be an OTT in the first place.
Of course, the Russian guy was there again to try to pick apart my dissertation. The Russians were not about to give up on discrediting me so easily. When it came time for the audience to ask their questions of me, he wasted no time in making his way to a microphone.
“Dr. Michaels,” he began, “you have claimed to have shown evidence of the existence of pair quantum particles in a single point in space, separated by time. You have postulated that one of the particles travels forward in time, but that the other travels backwards in time. You have further shown evidence that the quantum state of one can be determined if the other is known, just as is the case with paired quantum particles in space.
“You have gone well beyond your original hypothesis, and the experiments you have conducted now largely make the issue of quantum variations that could be affected by changes in the Earth’s magnetic flux, a moot point…”
“Is there a question somewhere in here?” my major professor interrupted.
“I’m just now getting to that,” the Russian gentleman responded. “Now if the quantum state of a particle traveling backwards in time can be determined by knowing the quantum state of its pair, which is traveling forward in time, does that not mean that one could in theory send information back in time?”
“In theory, yes, but that’s pure conjecture,” I answered.
“But if your hypotheses are correct, you should be able to do so, no?”
“In theory, that is correct,” I answered, “but that is assuming that there aren’t other factors that place limits on what is possible. What I have done is to provide evidence in support of my hypotheses. This is far from constituting proof of the ability to send information back in time.”
“So you admit there may be limits, or constraints, or that your theory may not even work,” he continued. Man, was he relentless.
“I believe that is true of virtually every dissertation,” I countered. “Absolute proof is an extreme rarity, if not a myth.”
“But if your theories are correct, then you would of necessity violate a number of sound, basic physical principles, not the least of which are some that are near and dear to General Relativity. Given the choice between accepting your theories and accepting Einstein’s, which by the way have been tested and verified time and time again, I would be hard-pressed to support yours.”
“Relativity does not preclude time travel,” I pointed out. “In fact, Einstein himself suggested that it’s a definite possibility.”
“He also demonstrated how difficult it might be to actually go back in time,” the Russian countered. “For example, you would have to deal with such things as infinite mass and negative energy.”
“That’s true,” I agreed, “and it would be a significant impediment to a person traveling back in time, but we’re not talking about sending a person back in time. We’re talking about sending information back in time, and information has no mass. A massless object does not become infinitely heavy as its speed approaches that of light. Relativity does not preclude anything I have hypothesized.”
“But sending information back through time could still result in a paradox,” he pointed out.
“It is true,” I agreed, “there is nothing to contradict this or to preclude the creation of a paradox that we know of. It’s possible there is a physical phenomenon, property or law we do not yet know about that would prevent sending information back in time. It’s possible that nature has other mechanisms for dealing with paradoxes, such as the emergence of alternate realities, or the formation of a singularity in which time no longer has meaning. Or perhaps paradoxes do exist, and the outcome from them is as certain as that from multiplying zero by infinity.
“The point is that just because an idea doesn’t sit well with us doesn’t mean that it can’t contain some truth. Just because sending information back in time could create a paradox doesn’t mean it can’t happen, no matter how disturbing the idea may be. All I have done is to demonstrate that theoretically, it may be possible.”
After the Russian’s questions, everything else was easy. The committee was happy with the new data I’d provided, and they did something I’d never seen before — they approved the thesis without any further revisions. At last, I was done! I’d be able to start work in Rankin’s lab in the spring next year, and I’d be able to start work at Livermore right away. My life was back on track.
<<<<<<<<·>>>>>>>>
It was Saturday morning and Andy and I were enjoying a leisurely breakfast, both clad in our usual morning attire of underwear — boxers for Andy and briefs for me — and nothing else. Jen had very kindly prepared pancakes for all of us, but ran out of eggs and decided to make a quick run to the store to pick up some more as well as a few other things we were out of or nearly out of, while she was at it. She’d insisted on Andy and me getting started — after all, we were starving — and the pancakes she’d already made would otherwise be cold by the time she returned.
It was thus that Andy and I found ourselves sitting at the kitchen table, drinking coffee and reading the paper, each with a large stack of pancakes in front of us. Andy as usual had the Sports Section and I had the Front Section.
I was lost in my own thoughts when I heard the sweet tenor of my teenage son’s voice. “Dad,” he started to ask, “how do you know when you’re in love?”
Putting down the paper, I noticed that he’d put his portion down as well and was looking intently at me, with a very serious look on his face. But then slowly his trademark smirk started to take over his face.
“Can I take it you’ve met someone?” I asked.
“Well sorta — kinda — I guess,” came his nervous answer.
“How do you ‘sorta’ meet someone?” I asked with a gentle smile on my face.
“Well there’s this girl, Stacy Rollins. She was in my pre-calculus class, and in my English class too last year. Me and a bunch of the guys were at the mall doing our back-to-school shopping, when we ran into a bunch of girls from school. Stacy was among them. We kinda joined up, did some of our shopping together, and went to the food court together.
“It’s not like I had a chance to actually meet her. We already kinda know each other anyway, having been in middle and high school together and all, but we never really talked to each other before, until yesterday. I’m not sure if talking’s the right word, though. I mean, she was there and I was there and we both talked as part of the group. More than once, I caught her lookin’ at me, though, and I sorta liked lookin’ at her, too.
“You’re a good looking boy, tiger,” I pointed out, “and I would think a lot of girls would like looking at you.” Boy, did he ever blush!
“Yeah, well,” he replied, and then continued, “At the mall yesterday, I realized I really, really like her. She’s smart, she’s intelligently funny — she’s hot,” he added with a silly grin, “but I just couldn’t get up the nerve to talk to her. I really think I may be in love with her, but how will I know, and how will I ever get to know her if I don’t ask her out?”
“Andy, you’re fifteen but because of your aggressive pursuit of your studies, you’re probably a good couple of years behind your peers when it comes to the dating scene. You haven’t even gone out in a date before, have you?” I asked.
Coloring up, he got a sheepish grin on his face and shook his head ‘no’.
“There’s nothing wrong with that, Tiger,” I responded. “Some studious kids don’t go out on their first date until college, in spite of what you may have been led to believe. Not that I’m discounting the notion of ‘love at first sight’, but you usually do need to get to know a person before you can fall in love with them. However, there is something commonly referred to as ‘chemistry’, and while not all relationships with the right ‘chemistry’ will lead to love, it’s pretty hard to love someone if the chemistry isn’t there. Romantically, that is,” I added.
“One thing I should caution you about, though,” I continued, “is not to confuse love and lust. When you see a ‘hot’ girl, or a hot guy for some of us, all kinds of hormones are released and you feel an intense ‘need’ to be with them — to do things with them. As they say, you feel ‘horny’.”
“Daaad!” Andy exclaimed as he turned redder still.
“There’s nothing wrong with feeling horny, Andy. It’s perfectly natural. We all feel that way sometimes, and just because you’re in a stable relationship doesn’t mean you’re immune, either. Lust shouldn’t be confused with love, however. Just because you’re excited at the prospect of being with someone doesn’t mean you’re in love with them.”
“Dad,” Andy whined, “give me a break. This is more than lust — way more. If I just wanted to deal with being horny, there are plenty of girls who’d be willing. Guys, too. A lot of kids do it all the time. They call it ‘hooking up’ and treat it almost like a hobby. I’ve sure been approached enough times, but that sort of thing’s not for me.
“If I just wanted to get off, I could do that myself. Yeah, it’d be nice to do it with someone instead of alone, but it’d still just be sex and nothing more. Excuse the language, but I don’t want to lose my virginity by getting a ‘quick fuck’. I want my first time to be special, with someone special. Hell, I hope every time will be special — and with someone I love.
“I kinda think that person may be Stacy. I like everything about her, and maybe love her. The thing is, although it’s hard not to think about sex when I think of her, more than anything I just want to be with her — to spend time with her and get to know her better. I want her as my friend as much as I want to take her to bed.”
Laughing, I said, “I can’t believe you’re discussing this with me, your father, so casually, almost like two adults. I could have never talked about sex with my dad.”
“Dad, you couldn’t even admit to yourself that you’re gay, so you aren’t exactly the best model either,” my son countered.
“Still, I don’t think most teenagers feel comfortable talking to their ’rents about sex, but then you’ve always been precocious. You’re fifteen going on fifty.”
“God, I hope not!” he exclaimed, and then continued, “So how do I know if it’s love?”
“Well, being attracted to each other, sharing common interests and values, enjoying each others’ personality — these are all foundations on which a love relationship is built. Do you think she feels the same way?”
“I have no idea,” Andy practically cried in exasperation. “She did smile at me a lot, but she smiles at everyone, and I don’t know if she was just being polite. And she’s older, too. I’m a grade ahead, and her birthday’s in the fall instead of the spring, so she’s actually almost a year and a half older than me.
“Than I,” I corrected him.
“That’s what I said, ‘than me’,” he practically giggled. He was pulling my leg, and we both knew it.
“Seriously, Dad,” he continued, “How do I know if she’s interested. What should I do? Should I maybe text message her?”
“Nothing would turn her off more than if you text message her,” I explained. “That’s so impersonal. The best way to get to know her better is to go out on a date, and the best way to impress her and make sure she says ‘yes’ is to call her personally. I know it’s hard, but you’ve gotta do it if you want a chance with her.
“Call her up, ask her if she’d like to go to the mall with you and maybe catch a movie. Take her to a real restaurant and not just the food court. Also — this is very important — let her choose the movie. But it all comes down to making that first phone call — to marshalling all your courage and taking that first step.”
Nodding his head, Andy said, “OK, I’ll do it. It’s prolly too early still, but in another hour, she’s bound to be up and I’ll call her then. Maybe we can even go out tonight!
“Oh,” he added as an afterthought. “I’ll need some money if I’m gonna take her out. Movies and restaurants are expensive.”
Chuckling, I lamented aloud, “With you dating, looks like I’m going to have to raise your allowance.”
Just then, the doorbell rang and Andy hopped off his stool, grabbed a pair of board shorts from his bedroom and went to the door to find out who it was. I heard him shout out, “Who is it?” obviously not knowing the person he saw through the peephole, and I heard someone call out, “UPS!”
I could hear Andy opening the door, and then he screamed. I was out of my chair in a flash, but before I’d even taken two steps, I heard someone shout in a thick accent, “WHERE IS HE! WHERE’S YOUR FATHER! TELL ME NOW OR I’LL BLOW YOUR FUCKIN’ HEAD OFF.”
The author gratefully acknowledges the assistance of David of Hope and Anthony Camacho in editing this story, as well as the support of Awesome Dude for hosting it. © Altimexis 2016